MUFON New Jersey Newsletter

History

Paul M. Makuch edited The New Jersey Chronicle from September 1990 (Volume 1, Number 1) as the bimonthly newsletter covering New Jersey for the Mutual UFO Network. Dr. Donald A. Johnson PhD served as State Director, with Bob Gross as Assistant State Director. The publication ran through mid-1994, reaching Volume 4, with State Section Directors submitting reports from across the densely populated state. The newsletter carried MUFONET BBS updates (MUFON's early computer bulletin board system) and a Computer Input Form for standardising sighting data entry.

The Chronicle's editorial ambitions went beyond chapter housekeeping. The lead article of the very first issue was Johnson's own analysis of the Roswell case, reporting on a private conversation with "a senior CIA policy analyst" who told Johnson that two colleagues were convinced, based on mid-1980s documents, that the government had retrieved at least one crashed craft of alien technology during the late 1940s or early 1950s. Johnson advocated Congressional immunity for fifteen men "sworn to secrecy" about the Roswell retrieval so they could testify, and reported that CUFOS planned to send 200 copies of Randle and Schmitt's forthcoming book to key members of Congress.

New Jersey MUFON meetings drew speakers from the New York City metropolitan area's concentration of UFO researchers. The chapter operated in one of the most densely populated states on the Eastern Seaboard, where military airspace (McGuire Air Force Base, Fort Dix, Lakehurst Naval Air Station), heavy commercial traffic through Newark Airport, and the New York City flight corridors created constant aerial activity. Investigators sorted genuine unknowns from this background. The April 1994 issue reported on a UFO sighted over South Bound Brook where investigators "bungled" the case, showing the Chronicle's willingness to criticise its own network's performance.

The newsletter tracked broader cultural developments: ABC's 1994 UFO special ("surprisingly unbiased"), the debut of Fox's "Encounters" series, the renewal of "The X-Files" for a second season, the upcoming Showtime Roswell movie, and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impact on Jupiter. This situational awareness of how UFOs were being treated in mainstream media distinguished the Chronicle from purely investigative newsletters.